You can't finish a
video card review before running a slew of Quake 3
benchmarks, can you? Of course you
can't! So here they come, Quake 3's
"Fastest" setting was used first.

Quake
3 Arena

Over
100FPS at 1600x1200, that is awesome, but we're
using the ugly "Fastest" setting.
Let's turn it up a notch as see how it performs at
the "Normal" setting.

Again
the 3D Prophet II Ultra puts up some serious
numbers. However, Quake 3's "High
Quality" setting is where we can really
stress a video card.

Again
we threw in some numbers from the Elsa Gladiac
Ultra for comparison. Both cards performed
great but the 3D Prophet was slightly
faster. Lastly we ran this same test while
overclocked.

Finally!
We broke the magical 60FPS mark at
1600x1200x32! There is no denying the Ultra
is the current King of 3D.

While
we had Quake 3 set to use the High Quality
setting, we set FSAA to the 2X2 setting and ran
some timedemos...

Nothing
to really brag about here, let's see if we can
improve things a bit when overclocked.

A
little better, but still a bit of a
disappointment. I'd rather shut off the FSAA
and play at 1600x1200 for now. In Quake 3
Arena, frame rate is key to your success because
you need to move fast or your going to be
rail-shot dust before you know it. FSAA is
much more useful in games like Flight and Racing
Simulators.

What
is there left to say about the Hercules 3D Prophet
II Ultra? It is one of the fastest and
feature rich video cards on the market. The
only real drawback is the price. At nearly
$500, the 3D Prophet II Ultra will probably be the
most expensive piece of equipment in your entire
system. Its tough to justify spending that
kind of money on a video card, that will surely be
surpassed in both performance and features in only
a few months. If you've got the budget and
can afford the 3D Prophet II Ultra, you will not
be disappointed. Personally speaking,
I'd wait to see what the next-gen. cards have to
offer before taking the plunge. We give the
Hercules 3D Prophet II Ultra a HotHardware Heat
meter rating of...